Studio: international art (85.1923)

WILLIAM WALCOT'S ETCHINGS

the United States at the invitation of the
American architects, I could not but feel
curious as to how the ** sky-scrapers ''
would appeal to the graphic wizard who
has revivified for us the classic buildings
of ancient Rome and Athens, Egypt and
Babylon, and interpreted their architec-
tural spirit. Other artists, notably Mr.
Pennell, who has pictured them with
native pride, and Mr. Nevinson, who has
been fascinated by the strange reality of
their hugeness, have seen these things as
new and attractive motives for etching ;
but Mr. Walcot was an architect before
ever he was an etcher, and he has
approached the matter with not only the
etcher's pictorial vision, but the knowledge
and intuition of the student of building
traditions throughout the ages. Look-
ing at his four little New York dry-

points one feels that he has brought, as it
were, his dream of the classic past to help
him understand the solution of the
American architects' problems, problems
presented by steel as a dominant building
material, and by the New York Zoning
Law’s restrictions of building height in
relation to the width of street. Walcot,
in fact, recognising that, as Professor
Reilly has lately pointed out, New York
is developing a new and true style of
architecture, which under changing con-
ditions promises to give the city a sky-line
more romantic than that of any other city
in the world, finds a harmony and majesty
of building that would seem to link it with
the classic tradition, adapted to modern
exigencies. This for Walcot is, of course,
an inspiration to artistic sympathy more
vivid than he is wont to be moved to by

312

"VILLA QUINTILII." DRY-POINT
WITH ETCHING BY WILLIAM
WALCOT, R.E., HON. F.R.I.B.A.